The newly formed Affirming Leaders Council is sounding the alarm in fear of Trumpism, global authoritarianism, and an international decline in human rights.
The bracing for President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming White House and its implications extends beyond Black, Brown, and marginalized communities within America’s borders. A second Trump term and its hostility toward racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, and its embrace of White Christian nationalism are also concerning on the continent of Africa.
Faith and religious leaders in Africa are banding together with Black American allies to fight back against what they see as a political movement driving Trumpism, global authoritarianism, and an international decline of human rights. Together, they formed the Affirming Leaders Council, led by Pan-African advocate Bishop Joseph Tolton, executive director of Interconnected Justice, and Rev. Mpofu Tutu, the daughter of the late Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.
“The extreme religious right is a global force that is not only undermining the life and well-being of African Americans but very much so has been meddling in African affairs for many, many, many years,” said Bishop Tolton, who has for years worked throughout the African continent to build a Pan-African, pro-LGBTQ coalition that advances human and civil rights.
Radically conservative religious ideology, which has been exported from the United States, is used as a “great distraction” in many African nations, Tolton told theGrio. The objective is to “recolonize the continent” through “religious fervor” and “religious absolutism.”
“This is going to be a part of the resistance,” Tolton said of the newly formed Affirming Leaders Council. “To interrogate the pernicious political movement that has been built upon the back of a very conservative, highly racialized Christian theology that absolutely has fully penetrated the continent in very destructive ways, and is also having a destructive impact on African Americans.”
While the conservative right is often seen as being in opposition to political issues connected to so-called morality concerns, like abortion or same-sex identity, Bishop Tolton said the religious right is also behind the growing anti-DEI political agenda in the United States.
“That’s a part of this dominionist, anti-Black agenda that has really been cooked up by the conservative religious right. They have captured the nation,” he maintained.
Rev. Tutu called out the global “tide of anti-Blackness that purports to be Christian” that is “cloaked in the politicization of African sexuality.”
“This calls for a bold, unified kind of African response … We must protect the forces that seek to divide and dehumanize us,” Tutu added.
As President-elect Trump returns to political power, U.S. lawmakers and advocates have expressed concerns about a potential decline in American democracy. Trump has also embraced authoritarians like Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. The same concern is also felt in Africa, where there has been a resurgence of authoritarianism across the continent with little expectation a Trump administration will do much, if anything, to intervene. By contrast, President Joe Biden and his administration have made efforts to call out attacks on the press, free elections, and human rights on the continent.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to disparage the American press, has falsely claimed there was voter fraud in his 2020 election defeat to Biden, and has suggested the military be used to silence protestors and his political opponents, which he has called “the enemy within.”
Bishop Tolton notes that Kenyan President William Ruto, despite previous diplomacy engagements with President Biden, has been “cozying to Trump” and engaging in “autocratic moves,” like suppressing mostly young protesters in opposition to his administration.
Tolton pointed to other examples of democracy being undermined in Africa, like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where President Felix Tshisekedi called for the constitution to be revised, causing concern he would move to alter presidential term limits so he could remain in power. Despite term limits laid out in the U.S. Constitution, Trump has similarly floated the idea of remaining president after two terms.
Though LGBTQ+ identity and subsequent civil rights remain divisive in the U.S., in Africa, laws have been proposed or passed criminalizing LGBTQ+ people – in some cases, punishment by death. During a virtual convening of faith leaders from nearly a dozen African countries, many referenced the growing legal attacks on LGBTQ+ communities, like in Uganda and Ghana.
“These laws seek to stigmatize and erase our brothers and sisters, diminishing their humanity and denying them the right to live openly and freely,” said Rev. Tutu during the Affirming Leaders Council convening last week. “These actions do not merely harm individuals, they tear at the very fabric of society, fostering fear, division and hatred.”
She continued, “This is not a matter of political expediency or cultural preference. It is a matter of moral imperative, as my father, the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, taught us. The God of love, compassion, and inclusivity calls us to stand against all forms of oppression.”
Rev. Dr. Iva Caruthers, who represented the U.S. delegation of the Affirming Leaders Council, warned that the election of another Trump presidency “speaks volumes to this nation, and indeed, the world.”
“Trump and Project 2025 epitomize the empire’s agenda to reconstitute white power with the pillars of anti-Black racism, Afrophobia, homophobia … autocratic system of governance and an economic order of oligarchy,” said Caruthers. She continued, “The intent is to demonize any notion that we are all made in the image of God and to strengthen a hierarchy of human value that they define and from which they benefit.”
“The intent is to control the world through this agenda where the rich get richer, and the poor get poor, and it is expanded beyond this world to other planets of God’s creation,” added Caruthers, who said America’s leadership in the world as a nation of “laws, freedom, and dignity” has been “undoubtedly eroded, if not eviscerated by this presidential election outcome ushered in with such ferocity.”
She added, “In the U.S., the practical questions come down to not just where do we go from here, but what do we do to mitigate, lessen and defend against this backlash.”
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